For how long I just stayed in that flying metal contraption like that, I don't know. I could only feel the occasional weightiness and strange feeling of being heavier than usually occasionally until the weight of my body grew. I had a bad feeling. It was the same feeling when Henry decided to race the family car when he got his license while I was still inside. I saw the other passengers slip their hands through straps that were attached to the walls, which made them look like thugs in a school bag. I realized that the wall behind me also contained black straps that were embedded on the wall. I pulled on one strap in desperation as the contraption I was riding began to shake violently. The strap slid out from inside the wall and I quickly slid one of arms into it. My other arm almost cramped as I tried to find the over strap.

Soon enough, I strapped onto the wall, moving up and down as I felt my whole body trying to distort. I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer, one of the many prayers I had muttered throughout the whole ordeal.

Dear God, I pleaded; if I survive this I swear I won't fall asleep during the sermon again.

But I couldn't even pray for long because I felt my head slip apart. If I had not been bumping around, I would have checked if my head was bleeding or not. But the pain was excruciating. It really felt as if someone was beating my head with a crowbar over and over again out of rage. But the pain gradually spread throughout the entire circumference of my head and I heard a loud scream right beside me my ear, only to realize that it was me.

A pair of rough hands held me in place, screaming something at me. I could barely open my eyes when I saw the golden eyes again, peering down at me, his face quite terrified. There were people surrounding him and he snapped at his comrades behind him, to which they spread apart. I caught my breath. The headache was gone. It was gone the same way it came; spontaneously.

The golden eyes man looked at me, confused, 'Are you all right?'

I wasn't all right. I touched my head, fearful that there was blood running down on the sides but I didn't touch anything wet.

'My head,' I said.

The man gave a questioning look.

'It hurts,' I muttered.

The golden eyed man backed away, scratching his hair as he did. It seemed he was puzzled at my behavior.

He went back into the secret room to my right while I had to suffer the curious looks and snickers from the rest of the passengers. I could almost hear them calling me a scared girl. I felt the floating feeling again and it lasted for a long time before the vehicle stopped. It actually stopped. I could feel it land somewhere with a loud and grinding thud.

The golden eyed man came out from the room again, I suspect it must have been a cockpit of a sort before he shooed away one of his comrades off this seat and lifted up the cushion of the bench. From the assumes storage space inside, me pulled out two sets of fabric. He tossed one to me.

'Wear it,' he ordered. The man then took off most of his guns, burrowed a dagger from another man and slipped a small gun into his belt. He also took out what seemed like a bottle and put it in his trouser pockets. He put on the coat as he ordered his compared something in their blocky and gruff sounding language. It was oddly beautiful to listen to, with a lot of vowels in the words, I think. The hatch opened from behind and bright sunlight streamed into the cabin.

Sunlight that was too bright. The golden eyes man pulled me towards the retractable plank and we stepped on solid earth again. Actually, it was sand. Golden, hot sand. The grains were big, unlike beach sand.

'Come,' the golden eyes man said.

I followed him into the sand and looked back to catch a glimpse of the flying machine again.

Only, it wasn't there. I didn't move when the man moved further again from me. He had to look back, click his tongue in annoyance and pulled me away as he tried to explain, 'No one can see the ship.'

'How?' I asked. 'Where are me?'

The man sighed as he stopped dragging me by the arm and said, 'Technology is advanced in other worlds. We are in your world.'

'My world?' I said as I looked around at what I think was a barren desert. We stood in a valley, surrounded all around by jagged cliffs and plants that hardly looked alive.

'Do people even live here?' I said.

This is insane, I thought. This is probably halfway around the world. Maybe we were America, where no one had really explored the continent.

The man didn't bother to answer me. Instead he kept on walking straight ahead to the middle of two cliffs, which were so close to each other they looked like the remnants of a dried up canyon. We walked for a while, between two giant rock formations where the path twisted and turned as the cliffs above us provided us shade.

The path made me almost feel claustrophobic. The cliffs around us made strange shelf formations and I think I saw what seemed like a black snake quickly shuffle along the shelves. But it moved too quick, more like a guppy in a pond. The golden eyed man was wide alert, looking around as he moved.

We kept on walking until we stumbled upon a queue; a queue of people in the middle of a canyon waiting in line as if they were trying to get into a cinema.

To find people in a place that seemed deserted was an absolute shock. There were wagons ahead of us, men dressed in head scarves and robes, women with children in their arms and animals that resembled nor ox, or donkey and definitely not a camel with sacks tied on their backs grunted in annoyance as their owners whipped their hind legs with a cane. In fact, they resembled rhinos more or less, with a longer reptilian tail and clawed feet with stag like horns.

I really was in another world.

The golden eyes man pulled the hood of my cloak over my head and pulled it hardly to cover my face before he dragged me along, not even hesitating not to wait in line and instead weaved his way through the line, earning scowls and mad looks from the people who were waiting in line. I saw a small child of maybe ix years old pointing at us while his mother picked him up and glared at us. Men yelled at us, which I think was profanities as the golden eyes man disregarded typical social etiquette and pushed anyone that was in the way.

Soon enough we came to the end of the canyon path. At that time, I was sweating, thirsty and feeling rather suffocated as the golden eyes man pulled out something like a tiny tablet from out of the many pockets of his dung green trousers and showed it to one of the two men who stood at either side of the opening in armor, with a spear in hand. Seeing the tablet, the guards nodded. I could not even catch a glimpse at them since the golden eyes man dragged me out.

The path opened up into an open area. Or more like, a basin surrounded by tall cliffs and which there was what seemed like a city resting in its center. To tell you the honest truth, the sight of the city scarred me.

It was big. It was so big that I started to question about the things I had actually seen throughout all the sixteen years of my life. We had a good view from where we stood, since we stood at quite a height above the city. Buildings, towers and houses occupied every square space of the city. Even the walls of the basin was not spared as there seemed to be buildings trying to climb up the cliff like walls like ants who were trying to escape running water by climbing over each other.

I was once again dragged to a tent ahead of us were there was another man in armor, flanked by more men in armor scribbling something that seemed like partially dried clay with a sharp stone utensil. The man looked up at the golden eyed man and the golden eyed man shoved his tablet.

The person who seemed like a clerk's eyes widened and he barked orders to the guards around me while saying something politely to the golden eyed man.

And so we waited.

I wanted to put my hood down to look around but the golden eyed man instead glared and whispered, 'Do you want to cause a commotion in here by showing your face?'

'Why?' I said. 'I don't look that different.'

The man frowned as he looked down at what I was wearing.

'You attract enough attention.'

I could only obediently look down at my slippers which's points were starting to wear off. I guess my attire does look rather alien. While the people were mostly wore bright colors of green, red, pink, orange and shades of brown with robes and shawls like that of the Middle East that I have seen in picture books, I wore a dull white blouse with a dark blue skirt. Even with the cloak, the skirt was rather noticeable.

But I wondered why my face should be hidden.

The more I studied the faces around, the more I realized how my face would fit it just perfectly in the crown. Everyone was dark skinned, just like mine. Mother's skin has a bronze sheen while the golden eyes man's skin was rather golden. My skin had the colour of coffee and almost everyone's hair was rather straight and jet black with eyes that ranged from pale jade green to bright azure blue to hazel.

As we waited, I watched a man approach with his wife and who children. The sort of clerk questioned them and the man answered meekly. After a bit of interrogation, the clerk crawled a figure on the clay tablet, after receiving a handful of coins, and a boy wearing a tattered dress of maybe about twelve in age took the tablet and tossed it into a kiln that stood behind the tent. The man and his family waited in the corner while the clerk interrogated the next newcomer to the city. As the man and his family waited, he was approached by men carrying sweets and bangles and the sellers of the stalls around him beaconed him to have a taste. The man's small son whined as he pointed to the sweets. The small boy could only hiccup in disappoint when his mother slapped his head and saying some words. I guess they could not afford it.

I guess I was into much more of a shock since a sedan carried my at least eight men approached us, the crowd around up parting ways like the red sea as all the immigrants and merchants stared at awe at the small human sized box carried by guards, or maybe they were soldiers. At the side of the sedan walked regal looking a man in armor much more impressive that that the other guards wore. There were carvings and imprints of scaled and animals on the chest plate and shoulder guards and he carried what seemed like an impressive curved sword. He scrutinized the golden eyes man with what seemed like distaste before moving his gaze to me.

The golden eyes man said something to the man in impressive armor. The man in impressive armor closed in, his face inches away from my face as he slowly lifted the hood away from me face so that only he could see. His angry and annoyed face changed in an instant to one of surprise. He then looked at the golden eyed man and motioned to the sedan. To my surprise, he didn't allow the golden eyes man to climb. He motioned me to climb it.

Feeling uncomfortable, I looked back at the golden eyes man, but he simply motioned me with his chin, frowning at me as he did. I got in, having to crawl in as my knees touched cushions inside. When I found myself in a comfortable yet cramped position, the sedan rose to the air and the ride once again began.

Sunlight poured into the sedan through the pink curtains, whose materials reminded me of the cotton sarees in Ceylon.

Ceylon. Home. It all seemed like a distant memory now.

Was my family worried about me? Did they try to find me? Mother surely must have? What about the Royal Academy of Science.

I didn't know and I didn't want to think about it. I tried to peak out of the sedan but the man with impressive armor said nothing. It seemed like a request. Seeing how shocked he was after seeing my face, I guessed he must have been telling me not to show my face around. With my hood his covering my head, I could only slowly part the curtain away to too what the city looked like. The dirt road was a downhill slope with stalls covered with tent materials and people crowding the streets, dirt flying up like smoke as the crowd parted ways for the sedan. At my side, I caught a glimpse of the golden eyed man following behind us as he walked, unscrewing the lid of his silvery bottle to take a drink.

The buildings were mostly made of yellow clay, with wood poking out of the corners were the clay had broken off. I saw children running around, some of them even my age. I saw girls in blouses and long skirts twirling around with bangles in their hands, their jet black long hair swaying as they dances to the music that was played. Up head, there was a band of musicians consisting of drummers and flute players that played under the shade a large well where mostly women drew water out from clay pots. I watched a butcher chase a small boy away from his house. At one point, the smell of freshly baked break wafted through the streets, making me hungry.

And so we made our way through the bustling streets. The swaying of the sedan was soft, rhythmic and in which I fell asleep, lulled by the sound of the crowd and the music around.